Terry Hinch - 2010 FAC Representative

Autobiography

Terry Hinch, a communications consultant, teaches in the departments of Communication, Speech and Journalism. He also teaches Managerial Communication in the MBA program at The Johns Hopkins University's Carey Business School. He has been a visiting professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, and taught at Gallaudet University as well as the University of Maryland at College Park, where he earned his Ph.D. in Public Communication. He has done public relations and communications consulting for the US Department of Health and Human Services, the US Social Security Administration and the US Postal Service. Terry also has had experience in commercial public relations, national political campaigns and fundraising, and is fluent in French. He handled media relations for the completion of Washington's National Cathedral. Terry’s research interests are in the field of crisis communication, based on his experience at the US Postal Service during the 2001 anthrax crisis. He is currently co-authoring a book entitled "Principles of Crisis Communication." Terry has spoken and consulted in various aspects of crisis communication in Asia, Europe and throughout the United States. In 2003 he received the Dean’s Scholar Award for Research from the Carey Business School at the Johns Hopkins University.

Nomination Essay

My understanding of the Faculty Advisory Council (FAC) at UMUC is to promote communication and participation among University faculty including librarians, to include participation in policy making as it affects the various faculty groups, and at-large. This allows the faculty to harmonize better with administration, and permits faculty issues to remain a high priority.

My platform would be to more fully represent the COMM faculty, one of the largest groups of faculty at UMUC. Currently, no COMM faculty members serve on the FAC. Writing service courses have always been a high priority at the university, however the WRTG faculty (part of COMM) currently has issues with large class sizes that can affect quality of teaching for the entire student body. These issues need to be understood and promoted by COMM and WRTG faculty, since they are closest to them. This would encourage more participation at meetings and policy making that affect the whole faculty.

While I believe the issues of salary, benefits and class size will likely remain issues for the foreseeable future, the FAC should be a force for academic standards at UMUC. In this way UMUC could be recognized as a quality institution, a cut above all others. With the rise in quality would come a rise in enrollments, and the issues of salary and class size could be resolved.